Problems with Crash Course's latest episode
I uploaded this journal yesterday, but I took it down due to various reasons. However, a lot of people seemed to ask for its whereabouts and wanted it back up, so I've decided to reupload it. So, I’ve talked about Crash Course Philosophy before. The episode that I talked about last time was the show’s “views on death.” I don’t want to get into it, but what I will say is that I disagreed on their views. I found the episode very biased towards one side of the argument, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter. However, several episodes of this series, along with their disaster that was Human Geography make me very apprehensive of their upcoming Crash Course Sociology. Yesterday they released an episode on the philosophy of discrimination, which is always a hot button topic, especially recently in the last couple of years. I had a lot of problems with this episode - most prominently, when it came out. Now, I know that these episodes are made weeks, possibly months ahead of time. Hank was still hosting Crash Course philosophy well after he was on paternity leave for that reason. However, the coincidence of the timing with events that had happened in the past couple of reasons really make the entire episode feel uncomfortable, and that’s the best thing that I can say about it. Once again Crash Course seems to be avoiding certain topics of the issue and really “giving an answer” instead of “asking a question.” The latter is what philosophy is supposed to do. And to be fair, the question of “when is it okay to discriminate” is definitely a moral quandary that is in the realm of philosophy. Some answers are obvious to most people. For instance, most people find it okay to discriminate against murderers. We discriminate in favor of our friends over strangers. But what good would philosophy be if we always stuck to the safe scenarios? We’re going to be talking about a lot of heavy stuff today, and if you’re not into the philosophical debates over this, then I understand. It’s a very murky topic and it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable writing this, but I felt that it’s pertinent to do so because the ideas showcased here are becoming more and more destructive. For the first couple of minutes, the video goes on about the obvious and easy scenarios when it comes to the topic of discrimination, and then he starts asking difficult questions, some of which we will come back to when he begins providing the answers. He comes to the point where he examines the argument that “people should be free to do what they want” aka discriminate as they please. His issue with this is “it gives a great deal of freedom to some people - namely those in power, those who own the business, and those who control the money. The more freedom that they have to act as they choose, the less freedom they’re discriminating against will have.” And it’s a fair point. However, it ignores counterpoints. The biggest problem is that it’s very hard to make discrimination logically illegal if we play with this idea. Someone has to make and enforce the laws against discrimination. And those people are, by definition, the ones in power. So the ones in power can determine what is discrimination and what isn’t. It’s by this very reason that freedom of speech is held in such high regard. And the whole point ignores accountability. If word got out that a company wasn’t hiring any black people - whether or not that was illegal - there would be massive public outcry, their stock would crumble, and they’d go out of business before too long. And you could also make a case for humanitarianism, people standing up for the person who is being discriminated against. It has happened before. But, I can respect the position that all forms of discrimination are bad. However, that isn’t the position that’s argued next. Neither of these are Hank’s own theories, but from philosophers who get the names but not the backstories of. This may sound minor, but when you’re talking about discrimination, the era that someone lives in gives much needed context to what people say and what they do. “Discrimination that favors a historically underprivileged class is more likely to be acceptable than discrimination favors a historically privileged class.” And he does bring up a counterpoint. “What if I’m in a historically privileged class. That’s not my fault, so why should I have to be passed over for a job.” However, I have two issues with the response. Number one, it’s not exactly the tightest response. This is what a teenager thinks the first time he comes across a minority-only scholarship. And two, he only gives a counterpoint to the counterpoint. And this is when I disliked the video. We have a lot to unpackage, but first, this is his counterpoint to the counterpoint: “Justice isn’t the same as being fair.” This is false. On the face of it. The definition of justice is “the quality of being just.” The definition of just is “guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness.” Although, I suspect that Hank is using a different definition of the word fair. He goes on to state “it’s unfair, but the reason that it feels unfair is because I’ve reaped the benefits of white male privilege for so long.” And it’s easy to say that when you have a well paying job and your own LLC. It’s not easy to say that when you’re living in poverty and having trouble supporting two kids because the factory in which you work just went out of business. I don’t think that all whites are similar and I don’t think that all blacks are similar. But let’s go into the actual point and all of its many issues and moral quandaries. The first issue is this - when does a historically underprivileged class no longer become underprivileged? And when that happens, do you honestly believe that all of the “justice” given to them is going to reverse or halt? Because they don’t. Once you really get them going, they can take decades to stop and by that point you’ve got the exact same problem in another direction. This happened a lot with the Protestants and the Catholics back in the middle ages. One group got power and oppressed the other. And the other side got power and felt just in oppressing the other. And then the other side got back power and felt just in oppressing the other because they were oppressed. And a lot of people died. To believe that this historical redistribution will stop at the exact time needed, you need to believe that humans are too awful to stop discrimination naturally over time while thinking that humans are also wonderful enough to not use too much historical redistribution to keep the other group down. The only other option is that you believe that what you’re doing is futile in the grand scheme of things, or that you’re not thinking ahead and only considering the present - which has created the worst of our personal, societal, and environmental problems. If you want a more modern example, look at female enrollment in colleges and universities. Back in the 80’s, more men than women were going, so they gave a bunch of women-only scholarships and many people made it their priority to get more women into college. In the 90’s, it was roughly equal, and now women are the vast majority going to college. Those women-only scholarships haven’t gone away and people are still making it their mission to get more women in college in the name of “equality.” The best that you can say is that the goalposts have been moved. Now they want more women in STEM fields, even though the original problem had been solved and had actually reversed from its original position. Back to my rebuttal to Hank’s point, a lot of people who encourage discrimination in favor of a historically underprivileged group tend to be very selective and arbitrarily include or disclude certain groups. Would it still be “just” to pass over that white man for the job if he was Irish or Jewish? What if he was passed over for a black man whose ancestors never were slaves? And there is still the issue that it groups all members of a race together, which furthers the problem of discrimination. The programs that try to correct history don’t work, not because peoples of all races are 100% equal, but because the members of each individual race are not equal to each other. I use this example a lot - affirmative action. What if a college, in an attempt to be more diverse went more lenient on black students’ applications and went harsher on white students’ applications. As a result, more black people get into the college, but you’ve ended up creating a dynamic where in general the white students are more qualified to be there than the black students, and this leads to some serious problems, as less qualified students are more prone to lower grades and dropping out. Hank says that “when you’re already so far ahead it can feel really bad to be held back and asked to wait for others to catch up, but if we’re really aiming for equality it’s what we have to do.” And let me change the scenario. I’m a little bit obsessed with school today, but it’s giving me a lot of good examples. Should the most intelligent student in the class be forced and held back to wait for everyone else? It’s not her fault that she’s intelligent, and it’s not her classmates fault that they’re not intelligent than she is? She’s good enough to be skipped ahead a grade, but should you keep her back because of something (roughly) arbitrary like her age? Or, let’s go with the opposite route. Would you doom the least intelligent student in class to academic failure by sending him ahead when his abilities demand that he be held back? It’s not his fault that he’s not intelligent. Ah yes, but in the race or gender example someone did a thing. Not directly to the person currently suffering/benefiting, but it happened. Even if it didn’t happen specifically to said person’s ancestors. We could lump all Asian-Americans together, but that means that we would have to lump the person born and raised in South Korea with amazing education and a high standard of life who just recently immigrated to the United States with the same person who was put in an internment camp in World War II, and their ancestors were brought over to do the highly dangerous work of building the railroads. But, I suppose we should talk about the issue that makes this entire video uncomfortable. You’ve probably heard the story, and I didn’t want to comment on it, but recently four black people kidnapped and tortured a white person, while saying “fuck white people” and “fuck Donald Trump.” Meanwhile, the police stated that this was not racially or politically motivated. I bring this up because… this tends to be “really bad” feeling of “discrimination that favors a historically underprivileged group,” not being passed over in a job because of some arbitrary factor. It’s being told that hatred against you or what you are isn’t hatred and it’s justified because something happened that you didn’t do, and quite possibly not even your own specific ancestors were a part of. In fact, they may have been a victim of it. This is what “waiting for others to catch up” can feel like. And it will end up sowing seeds of tension. The next hate crime that happens to a white person, people will say that it isn’t a hate crime because they can’t be racist against white people. The more that people say that you can’t be racist against white people, the more racism against white people will be created. Meanwhile, media companies will be telling them to “do better next year” because something didn’t go their way. Hank says there’s a difference between “justice” and “fairness” and I don’t find that true, considering that “fairness” is a part of the definition of “justice.” What I do find though, is that there is a difference between “justice” and “vengeance.” *As an addendum. Yes, this was declared a hate crime - not because of his race or political affiliation, but because he was mentally disabled. It felt like a half measure designed to make everyone happy that, in the grand scheme of things, made no one happy. Here’s another philosophical question - how many “isolated incidents” need to happen before it becomes a legitimate problem? How many times does something get ignored or downplayed (hello CNN) before it can be considered “systemic ignorance.”? With everything that’s been going on recently, it really taints any points that Hank has made in the video. I know that it wasn’t intentional to release it as such a tumultuous time, when the ramifications of what he’s pushing for is coming to the forefront. I’m sure that “discrimination in favor of historically underprivileged groups” had good intentions, but it’s that thought process that is so often used to justify outrage and revenge, usually against people who themselves did not do anything. And that outrage frequently creates an even bigger backlash. I do like most episodes of Crash Course Philosophy because they do bring about good quandaries and interesting puzzles and paradoxes. However, sometimes we get into territory like this. This didn’t seem to be very… philosophical. At the very least, it didn’t follow some of the guidelines of philosophy back at the beginning of the series. Philosophy is more about coming up with questions than coming up with answers. I hope that Crash Course sociology turns out good because it’s very possible that every episode ends up like this Category:Miscellaneous